The clutch and brake pedal assembly on early Mustangs can wear out. Here's how to replace it.

Miles Cook

April 27, 2006

Several readers have written over the past year or two wondering how to replace a manual transmission clutch spring in a vintage Mustang. While it's a fairly esoteric subject, we still wanted to investigate the issue. In the meantime, we ran across a car that needed a complete pedal-assembly replacement, which in turn also gave us the chance to examine the issue of where the clutch spring is and what needs to be done to get to it.

The result is we're killing two birds with one stone. That is, we're doing quite a bit more than originally intended, which we hope will be more helpful than if we replaced only a clutch-pedal return spring.

The main problem we've seen on some vintage Mustangs is the way the pedals hang in the footwell. They're slanted at the wrong angle, and clutch-pedal effort is much harder than it should be. We knew that in the case of our subject car, the situation would grow worse every time the clutch was used, since it was already grinding.

On vintage Mustangs, the clutch and brake pedal operation and design is pretty much the same, so the problem on this '69 Mustang isn't confined to any model year. The issue is more related to how much the car has been driven and for how long maintenance of the clutch linkage has been overlooked. After 37 years of service, this car's pedal assembly needed serious help, so we decided to show how the entire assembly is configured, at the same time illustrating the clutch-spring location if its replacement is necessary.